


Hard to Replace

by FullofCats



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Grant Ward Redemption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-27
Updated: 2015-08-17
Packaged: 2018-04-06 13:07:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 14,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4222818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FullofCats/pseuds/FullofCats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a poorly written fic floating around where the Kree Stone send Simmons back in time where she pushes Ward into traffic and because of it Trip, Hartley, and Kara are alive and Kara is gay (because Ward's super powers are turning people straight.) </p><p>In this story the Kree rock sends Simmons into a universe where Ward was never on her team and Garrett had recruited an actual psychopath. </p><p>Yes, inspiration can come from weird places.</p><p>Also this is a Ward redemption story. So if you don't like them, you don't have to read them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Over the Rainbow

It seemed like only seconds passed between when the stone grabbed her and released her against the against the floor hard. She felt woozy, disoriented and soon lost consciousness. 

When she opened her eyes next, she was lying on a bed. Her head still felt woozy and she heard the soft beeping of a heart monitor.

“Jemma—“ said a soft female voice with a British accent. It was her teacher Anne Weaver. They had been somewhat estranged since her SHIELD had taken over the Playground. “How are you feeling, dear?”

Dear? That confused her. She opened her eyes but had to blink twice at what she saw. She wasn’t in the infirmary at the Playground. The lack of windows and the gentle rocking could only mean she was on the Iliad instead. Why had Coulson sent her here?

“What’s going on?” she asked, her voice low and woozy. “Why am I here?”

She looked at Weaver who had a very concerned face. There was a chair by the bed indicting that Weaver had been sitting nearby. 

“You were sucked into that big rock we have in the hold. We thought it killed you. A few hours ago it released you. We’re hoping you could tell us what happened?”

“In the hold?” Jemma asked, confused. She tried to get up from the bed but felt dizzy and stopped. “What is it doing back on the Iliad?”

“Back?” Weaver asked, her voice filled with confusion. 

“And where’s Fitz?”

“Fitz?” Weaver asked. Now Simmons could see confusion in her face, but also concern. “Do you mean Leo Fitz?”

“Yes,” Simmons said, annoyed. “What other Fitz would I be talking about?”

“Jemma, what was the last thing you remember?”

“That rock grabbing me.”

“Before that?”

“I was talking to Fitz?”

Weaver looked even more confused. “We scanned you. You showed no signs of a concussion.”

“What?”

“I’m sorry, Jemma. I think that rock has messed with your memories. Fitz has been dead for almost two years.”

Simmons heart began beating fast. Was this some kind of cruel joke? Weaver did a bad thing helping Gonzales take over the Playground, but this seemed beyond that. This seemed flat out cruel.

“What are you talking about? Let me speak to Director Coulson!” This time she forced herself up. She sat at the edge of the infirmary bed despite the dizziness. She began removing all the monitors for her vitals. 

Weaver didn’t stop her. Instead she looked even more confused. “Director Coulson? Phil Coulson?”

“Yes.”

“I really think that rock has messed up your memory dear. I’m sorry to say Phil Coulson is dead too and he was never the director. You must have some kind of dissociated amnesia.“

“No, Fitz and Coulson can’t be dead. I was just talking to them.”

“Where?”

“At the Playground.”

“The Playground? I’ve never heard of that place.”

They were interrupted when the door opened. Simmons gasped she saw a dead man walk in. 

Robert Gonzales looked exactly the same including his limp and cane. 

“I don’t understand,” Simmons said. “What kind of trick are you playing?” She looked over Weaver and Gonzales. “Are you Hydra, are you wearing one of those sick masks?”

“Jemma—It’s me,” Weaver said. “I’m not wearing one of those masks.” She turned around. “Feel my neck, pull my hair, I’m me.” Jemma did. She reached around Weaver’s throat but could find no off button for a mask. As far as she knew Anne Weaver stood before her. 

“What’s the matter?” Gonzales asked.

“The rock did something to her memory. She still thinks Coulson and Fitz are alive.”

“They are alive,” Simmons insisted, “but you’re not, Agent Gonzales.”

Gonzales looked confused. He put out his hands. “As you can see Jemma, I’m perfectly fine. This isn’t a trick.”

Simmons is confused about Gonzales calling her by her first name. “How did Coulson and Fitz die? What about May? Skye? Bobbi? Hunter? Mack?”

“Bobbi and Mack are fine. I don’t know who this Hunter is.”

“Isn’t that Bobbi’s ex?” Weaver asked. “He’s a merc, friends with Hartley.”

“Isabelle Hartley?” Simmons asked. “She’s alive?”

“Why wouldn’t she be?”

“She died in an accident while I was undercover with Hydra.”

“What?” Gonzales said. “You’ve never been undercover with Hydra. I don’t know what that rock did to you. Maybe it was some kind of Tahiti thing. Not that we would ever do that to you. Even though you had once begged me.”

“I begged you to do Tahiti on me. Why?”

Gonzales took a deep breath. She saw something she had never seen in his face before sympathy. He gave her a sad smile before he started talking. “Because during the Hydra uprising, every single member of your team was killed.”

“No—“ She said as she backed up on the infirmary bed. “No, they are all alive. I just saw them. May was even laughing. Is this some kind of Hydra trick? Maybe Hydra brainwashed you.”

“I promise,” Weaver said. “No. Hydra wouldn’t brainwash us. They would just kill us and you. When the up rise happened, Hydra showed us no mercy, including your team.” 

“Who killed them?” Simmons said, but she still didn’t believe. “Was it Ward, because this all smells of him?”

“I don’t know who that is.” Gonzales said. He looked at Weaver. “Do you?”

Weaver shook her head.

“You don’t know double agent Grant Ward? Agent Weaver, you meet him the time we came to the academy.”

“No, I never heard of him. He wasn’t with you when you came to the academy.”

“I’ll have someone look him up,” Gonzales added. 

Simmons still didn’t want to believe, but Weaver wasn’t cruel. If they were brainwashed, this was a pretty elaborate set up. “If Ward didn’t kill them, who did?”

“You really don’t know who killed them?” Gonzales asked. 

Simmons shook her head. 

“It was Lucien Hardow.”

“I don’t know who that is.”

“I don’t understand,” Weaver said. “Hardow was the hydra agent on your team working along with John Garrett.” 

“I know who John Garrett is, but I never heard of Hardow. How did Coulson and Fitz die?”

“You really don’t remember, do you?”

“I don’t remember because it didn’t happen that way. What about Trip? Is he still alive?”

“Agents Coulson, May, and Triplet died trying to capture Garrett. They were murdered by Hardow and possibly Deathlok,” Gonzales said. 

“No. Garrett were holding Mike’s son hostage. Skye freed him. And he turned against Garrett. Deathlok helped us a few months ago to take down parts of Hydra.”

“Skye didn’t free Deathlok’s son. Deathlok is a Hydra agent, has been for two years.”

“Why didn’t Skye free Mike’s son?” 

“Because Hardow took Skye as a hostage because she encrypted a harddrive. We don’t have all the details. But he got her to unlock it, shot her in the head, and dumped the body. Coulson found her.”

“No,” Simmons said, shaking her head. “No. It’s not true. You’re trying to trick me.”

“I’m sorry, Jemma,” Weaver tried to take her hand but Simmons pulled it away. 

Simmons couldn’t believe any of it. Either her memories had been tampered with, this was all a Hydra ruse, or the stone had done something else. She wasn’t sure what she to believe. She knew her friends weren’t dead. 

“What about Fitz? How did he die?”

Weaver didn’t say anything.

“Anne?”

“You’re the one who told me this story.”

“Fitz is alive, so humor me.”

“Hardow captured both of you. You and Fitz tried to get away from them. Fitz locked you in the medical pod and ejected you into the ocean. “You saw Hardow shoot him.”

“These are not my memories. Grant Ward was the traitor on our team,” she explained. “He was the one that dumped us in the medical both into the ocean after Garrett ordered him to kill us.”

“I don’t know who this Grant Ward is. I just know that Hardow wouldn’t have dumped you, Jemma. He would have killed you outright.”

“What about Nick Fury? He still rescued me right?”

“You gave him directions to find Coulson, but by then it was too late. Cybertek had taken their soldiers and left. Fury eventually found me and left me in charge of SHIELD. You came to live on the Iliad with us.”

“Garrett escaped. He wasn’t killed? I thought he was insane?”

“He was for a little while. Something stopped him. We don’t know what.”

“And this Hardow fellow. I’ve never heard of him—Ward saved me once when I jumped out of the plane. Did Hardow save me?”

“Yes, he did,” Weaver explained. She tried taking Simmon’s hand again. This time Simmons didn’t pull away. “Hardow was a charmer. Handsome and quite outgoing. He came from a good family, was a legacy at SHIELD. He was a hit with the ladies whether he went. You all loved him. In fact because you loved him so much, you all couldn’t accept he was a traitor. It wasn’t until after he killed Skye that you know who he really was.”

Weaver looked at her with a serious face now.

“What?”

“I got you through the death of your team, Jemma,” Weaver explained. “You were inconsolable. It was a hard journey especially about Fitz. I don’t know if I have the strength to do it again. Now it looks like you concocted a fantasy story.”

“If it was a fantasy, why would Hartley and Gonzales be dead?”

“I’m not sure,” Gonzales said. “Why don’t you get some rest? We figure out who this Grant Ward is and who messed with your memories. I want my Jemma Simmons back. I hate that you look at me with mistrust.” He walked out slowly.

“You have a very close relationship,” Weaver explained. She patted her hand. “We all helped you deal with what happened. We're a family here.”


	2. The Missing Piece

“Knock, knock,” Simmons looked to see Gonzales by the door. He actually gave her a slight smile. Simmons hadn’t really absorbed that people on the Iliad were her family. She only knew them as the double agents who had infiltrated her SHIELD. 

It had been a few hours. She was still in the infirmary. She wasn’t dizzy anymore and she spent the last few hours absorbing her new surrounding and trying to figure out what happened. She had various theories but she thought she came up with one that might be the truth. She hoped to run it passed Weaver, but since Gonzales was here, she might as well see what he thought.

“Hello.” She tried to smile back but couldn’t. She didn’t despise Gonzales but he had forcibly taken over SHIELD. 

“You don't have to stay in the infirmary all day,” he explained. “You can go back to your room.”

“I don’t know where it is.”

Gonzales looked awkward. She knew standing on the bad leg had to be uncomfortable yet he didn’t sit. 

“I’ll have someone show you or I can take you.”

Simmons didn’t respond. Gonzales looked more uncomfortable. 

“You wanted to know about Grant Ward?” he asked, to break some of the tension. 

“Yes, where is he?”

“He’s not a Hydra agent. In fact, he’s never been in SHIELD, HYDRA, or even on our radar. He’s an ex-con addict living in Trenton, New Jersey washing dishes and bouncing at some dive bar. He’s been in and out of prison for the last 10 years.”

“What was he in prison for?”

“Originally attempted murder and being a fugitive. When he was 15, He tried to kill his brother by setting their house on fire—“

“Fifteen?” Simmons was sure she heard right. 

“Yes, but he ran off from juvie. Some cop in Wyoming picked him up about 7 months later. He was tried as an adult, and ended up getting five years. Then he was in and out of prison usually for drug possession and parole violations—“

“No, assault? No murder.”

“Unless he got away with it. Every time he went back to prison, it was for drug possession or he didn’t show up for parole. He has only one weird connection to John Garrett but it might be coincidence. Less than a year ago, Hydra attacked a military base and John Garrett’s Hydra identity was publicly revealed. Suddenly this Grant Ward decided to get his life together. No more parole violations and he got consistent work. His life was no longer in the news.”

“Why would it be?”

“His brother Christian is the senator from Massachusetts and a presidential hopeful. Every time his ne’er-do-well brother got sent to prison, the news would pick it up.”

“And he was never in SHIELD or Hydra?” Simmons asked. Her theory sounded more plausible. She started thinking of a way to tell Gonzales without him thinking she was crazy. 

“We can’t find a single connection other than when he started to get his life together. And again it might just be a coincidence. Jemma, this guy Ward is a low-life nothing. He’s a junkie, nothing else. Maybe you dreamed him up after seeing him in the news.”

Simmons let it all sink in. Her team was dead, she lived on the Iliad, and Grant Ward was a drug addict who had spent half his life in prison. 

“We need to figure out what happened. We need to fix your memories. I need my Jemma back. You don't look at me the way you used too. We were friends—”

“About that,” she interrupted before it got uncomfortable. “I’ve been thinking a lot about me remembering differently. The simple explanation is something like Tahiti or brainwashing, but my memory changed after I left that stone. Maybe that stone moved me into another dimension. A dimension where my team is dead and for some reason Ward never joined Hydra.”

“Dimensional travel? You being brainwashed or given false memories seems more plausible.”

“We’ve dealt with someone once who was trapped between worlds. And you know the world is a strange place. There was a doctor I read about who thinks dimensional travel might be possible.”

“So you think you’re from some other world. Where your team isn’t dead—“ he paused. “But Hartley and I are.”

“You both died very bravely,” Simmons said. She smiled which seemed to make Gonzales less on edge. 

“Brave enough for you to respect me?”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s not just mistrust that I see,” he explained. “You don’t respect me, either. What did I do in your world that you hate me?”

“I don’t hate you, but Fury handed leadership over to Coulson not you. You had established your own SHIELD on the Iliad. You placed Hartley and Bobbi on Coulson’s team to spy for you. Eventually you took over the Playground. I think because you were jealous.”

“I’m not the jealous type. I’m sure I took over the Playground for good reason. I would never do anything bad to fellow SHIELD agents even if I think they are being misguided.”

“Yet you did. One of your agents almost killed Skye.”

“Who?” he said. 

“Calderon.”

Gonzales shook his head. “Tomas is a hot head and he’s been through hell. We all have, but he would never hurt another SHIELD agent.”

“It’s because in my world, Skye has powers.”

“Oh, she’s enhanced,” he said. Gonzales kept a poker face so Simmons couldn’t tell if he was as suspicious of them as he had been in her world. 

“And he shot to kill her.”

“I guess that’s why this Ward guy couldn’t kill her,” he said, changing the subject. “Wow, SHIELD with enhanced people. I could deal with it in the Avengers, but in SHIELD, I don’t know.”

“She wasn’t enhanced then. Apparently he couldn’t kill her because he claimed to love her. She got away because she’s a good agent.”

Simmons decided not to tell him about the Inhumans or Afterlife. Gonzales in this world seemed to have the same bias as the other one. 

“I’m sure she was—is. You have to understand. I’m not condoning what Tomas did in your world, but during the fall of SHIELD, we had to rescue Weaver. Hydra kidnapped a lot of her students and then left enhanced individuals to kill the rest. She went through hell. We have to be a little suspicious of enhanced people. Jemma, if what you’re saying is true, then in your world, your team survived the fall of SHIELD intact—“

“Fitz was injured and Ward betrayed us.”

“Injured but alive,” he rubbed his leg. “Someone tried to cut my leg off with an ax. Tomas found bodies of kids at the academy. Hydra killed children. Our Simmons went through hell like we all did. When the Hydra signal came out, out of nowhere people we called friends suddenly turned on us. One minute I was talking to Agent Olmos, the next moment he grabbed an ax and attacked me. Lucien Hardow the spy on your team. He killed dozens of SHIELD agents when he and John Garrett took over the Slingshot. And you watched him murder Agent Fitz.”

“I never did.”

“I can see that. Our agent Simmons. She wasn’t a weak person, not by any means but you could see the death of her team broke a piece inside of her. Hydra broke a piece inside us all. Not only were we betrayed by our teams, but we watched the people who were still SHIELD to the end die as well.”

Now she at least understood how she—the other Simmons had become close to the people on the Iliad. She had never thought of them that way. She had always seen them as the enemy. 

“I would like her to come home. If your theory is true, then our Simmons is in your dimension. How do we switch you back?”

Simmons hunched her shoulders. “Maybe the rock will do it.”

“Then you’ll want to go back to it.”

“Yes—but I need to do something first.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, yeah, AU Ward will show up in the next chapter with a sob story.


	3. Both Sides Now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some talk about drug abuse.

She almost didn’t recognize him. His hair was longish, greasy, cut unevenly so it hung in his face. He had tattoos, which wasn’t a big deal except she recognized some were homemade which meant he got them in prison. He still had a handsome face, but it was gaunt, sunken in, and pale. Dark circles encased his eyes. His body was thinner. He wore a worn looking white tank top and torn at the knee blue jeans over boots. He didn’t look dangerous instead he looked tired and as worn out as his shirt. He was moving glasses off the bar when she came in. He talked to another man in rapid fire Spanish. 

He heard her footsteps and looked her over, not like a man might look over a pretty woman, but in suspicion. There was not a hint of recognition in his face.

“I suggest you turn around and leave,” he said, his tone bitter but his voice low. He kept one hand on the bar. “But before you go, I have a message for Christian. I’m not going to ruin his campaign. I’m clean and haven’t been in jail for 14 months. I’m even going to use some of his hush money to pay for college classes. All I asked is he leave me alone.”

“I’m not here for your brother.”

Ward didn’t look convinced. “You’re armed and well dressed. I have to be suspicious. We don’t sell here either if that's what Christian is looking for. It’s a seedy bar but I keep the dealers out.”

“I’m not here for drugs or your brother. I’m here about John Garrett.”

Ward looked startled. He then spoke to the other man in Spanish. The man disappeared into the back. “What about him?” he said, his voice went from bitter to shaky. He finally moved his hand off the bar. “I don’t think one of the Hydra heads would be in a dive like this.”

“You’ve never met John Garrett before?” she asked but she knew by his face and voice he had. The Ward of this world didn’t know how to lie well. 

Ward no longer looked startled anymore, now he looked spooked. Not only did he have trouble lying, but he lacked the confidence of the Ward in her world. 

“I’m from SHIELD,” she admitted. “We’re trying to find out everything we can about John Garrett. I suspect you know him.” 

“I thought SHIELD was disbanded,” his voice was even shakier now. He spluttered slightly on the word disbanded.

“In the public yes, but not in private. Tell me how you know John Garrett? We couldn’t help but notice, that when he became known as Hydra, you started to get your life together.”

“How did you figure it out?” he asked, confused. “I only told my therapist. And I doubt Garrett told anyone about me.”

Simmons paused for a moment. The idea of Ward getting therapy seemed foreign to her. “Please tell me about him?”

Ward didn’t respond. He put the glasses on the bar and walked slightly closer to her but stopped halfway. He looked upset, but not angry. 

“Please,” she pleaded. “I’m just here to gather information. If you’re afraid of Garrett, we can help you hide from him.”

“I’m not afraid of Garrett. For almost 16 years, I had been kicking myself because he asked me to join SHIELD.”

Simmons didn’t respond right away. She wasn’t sure she heard him right. “Wait a minute. Did you say 16 years? That would make you a teenager when you met him.” And around the same time he was wanted for attempted murder.

Ward shrugged his shoulders. “Yeah, does it matter?”

It did, but Simmons decided not to press this issue. “What happened after he asked you to join SHIELD?”

“Why is this important?” he asked, defensively. 

“Please. We need to know all we can about John Garrett to locate him. You’re not in any trouble. We just need information.”

“He broke me out of juvie. I thought he was going to take me to some SHIELD training camp, but instead he took me out in the middle of nowhere and left me there for six months.”

“What?” Simmons asked, confused. “Huh?”

“This surprises you? You’re SHIELD, you know what Hydra is capable of. He left me there with some clothes and his dog.”

Simmons felt sick to her stomach. “Wait, how did you eat?”

“There were some abandoned cabins with some canned food and a lake, I tried catching fish or small animals. The dog was pretty good at catching birds. There were berries and it took a little time to figure out which ones were poisonous. I dreamt about cheeseburgers for weeks. I found this bigger cabin by accident and it had more food and a blanket. After that it wasn’t that bad. I learned to ration. I searched for miles at a time, but all I found was more wilderness.”

“And then what happened?” now her voice was shaky. She knew Garrett had been Ward’s SO after he got out of Operations. She had no idea they had met earlier and she had no idea what Garrett had done to him. Did this happen to her Ward as well? 

“He came back after the winter. After I had almost froze, starved or poisoned myself. Told me he was going to teach me how to shoot. After a few more weeks, he took me to the nearest town to get my haircut and my first real meal in months. I jumped out of his truck before it even stopped and ran to the cops. The Sheriff there was really nice. He asked Garrett for paperwork and then he made him wait while he checked. Garrett said he was going to the bathroom and then vanished.”

“Then what happened?”

“The cop’s wife stuffed me full of food until they could contact my parents—“ Ward paused. Simmons thought he was going to say something more, but he didn’t. Instead he walked back to the bar.

“I have to get back to work.”

Simmons walked over to him and actually grabbed his hand. She looked into his eyes for a moment. She didn’t see a murderer. 

She could see the faded track marks on his arms as she pulled him over to a table. 

“Sit, please. Just a few more questions. We have some money to help you out.”

“I don’t want any. I’ve only told my therapist this story,” he said, looking down. “If you want info about John Garrett from me, I don’t know a lot. I just know he’s a bad person.”

“My name is Jemma Simmons. Please tell me what happened after. You may think your story is unimportant, but it isn’t.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “The sheriff—I remember his name was Duchene. I spent time with him and his wife at the station. She was nice to me—“ His voice trailed off.

“What?”

“It’s not important.” 

“Maybe it is.” 

Ward shook his head and put it down. “Only my shrink knows this. Please. It’s embarrassing.” 

Simmons had to lie to get the rest of the story from Ward. “He might have done this to other boys that’s why I need to know the entire story.”

That seemed to convince him, he started talking again. “I started crying like a little kid when she fed me. I was so hungry. She hugged me hard when I told her what happened. And then she cried when they took me away. She couldn’t believe that there was an outstanding warrant for my arrest for attempted murder. I was kidnapped and abandoned in the woods, maybe to die, and my parents didn’t care.” He looked down. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You don’t want to hear my sob story. Let’s just get to Garrett—“

“No,” she said. “I want to hear the rest.”

Ward hesitated, finally he said: “It was like my kidnapping didn’t matter. I was charged with the exact same crimes as before plus they added being a fugitive. Apparently I arranged my own kidnapping. Apparently it was my fault Garrett left me in the woods to die. I got sentenced to adult jail. You can’t imagine how it’s like being 16 and spending days with rapists and murders. I was in solitary a lot to protect me from the other inmates or to keep me from taking drugs. Once I got out, I had nothing. My family disowned me, wouldn’t speak to me. I contacted John Garrett for help and he called me a weak and worthless junkie. He found a student much more willing than I was. And that is the last time I spoke to John Garrett. It was almost 10 years ago.”

“Hardow was the other student?”

“I guess so, but you did say something about other boys. I thought I had a terrible life. I did so many things I’m not proud of. I was without hope. I figured they’d find me ODed in a ditch somewhere. Then Hydra attacked that base and I saw John Garrett’s name. I realized that he was trying to recruit me into Hydra. So despite my shitty life, it could have been worse. I could have been in Hydra. I could have murdered people. I’m kind of a scumbag, but I’m no killer.”

“But you went to jail for attempted murder?”

“I set my family’s house on fire. I didn’t realize my brother was inside. The judge sentenced me to five years because I refused to admit my guilt.”

Simmons looked away.

“What? You look annoyed. I thought you said you weren’t going to judge me.”

She looked back. “I don’t want too. You set the house on fire, you were responsible.”

“I’ll never deny that ever. I admitted to the judge I did it, except when I told him why, he didn’t believe me.”

Simmons got more annoyed. Despite his story, he became typical Ward. Different universe, same person.

“You still look annoyed. Why? My therapist says that what I do now is on me but what happened to me, as a kid, wasn’t my fault. I didn’t ask to be abused and kidnapped. Just so you know, I do not and will never work for Hydra, taking Christian’s money was bad enough.”

“What truth did you tell the judge?”

Ward looked at her in confusion for her abrupt change. “Because when I told my parents that Christian forced me to hurt my younger brother, they didn’t believe me and sent me away. I became so angry with them for not believing me. The judge didn’t believe me either. Christian lied on the stand that I attacked Thomas with a screwdriver. Some shrink I never met called me dangerous.”

“Why were you so scared of Christian?”

Ward looked away. He looked at the bar, at the door, but couldn’t look at Simmons. 

“Ward?”

She could see calling him by name was wrong. He got spooked again and walked to the bar. “Why am I ever telling you this? I don’t know you.” 

“Please come back to the table. I want to hear the rest of the story. Please this is all confidential. I won’t tell anyone else. We need to capture John Garrett.”

She was glad when he did. “Are you a shrink? You sound a little like mine. He really helped me open up about my abuse.”

“Yes,” she lied.

“I figured. You just got me to open it up like that. Not many people have been able too.”

“Tell me about what Christian did to you?”

“What does this have to do with Garrett?”

“Just humor me.”

“Christian hit me a lot but he made sure it didn’t leave a mark. He got other kids at school to taunt and fight with me. I never had a moment’s peace until he came to me and told me to toss Thomas in a well. He said that if I did, my life would get better but if I didn’t life was about to become hell. I didn’t do it right away and Christian show me a little bit about what hell would be like. So I did it, except I rescued Thomas too soon. Later that night, Christian did the same to me. Thomas was trapped down there for about 20 minutes. I was there for three hours.”

Simmons couldn’t say anything. Did the same thing happen to the Ward in her universe?

“What happened after?”

“I would do things to Thomas, trip him, hit him. And Christian stopped hitting me, the kids at school left me alone, but life did not get better. It got worse.”

“He kept hurting you?”

“No. He stopped but promised it would start again if I ceased hurting Thomas and he wanted me to escalate. Tripping and punching him in the arm wasn’t enough. He wanted more like what happened at the well--” he paused. “So I gave it to him.”

Simmons looked down. Skye had once told her that Ward might have been lying about the abuse that he really was just a psycho. 

But the man before her was not a psychopath. Just an adult with a horrific childhood.

“Do you think you’re a good man? I mean deep inside.”

Ward looked at her strangely at her question. “I want to be. I want Thomas’ forgiveness. I tried, but he won’t speak to me. But most of the bad things I’ve done have been to myself. My shrink says that abuse victims can grow up to hurt other people, but most of them hurt themselves. I spend 16 years on a self-destructive path. It was only seeing how much worse my life could have been to stop it.”

Simmons looked over Ward. The only member of her team still alive in this universe but he was never on the team here. They had never asked why he followed Garrett. If she had known how horrific things had been, she might have treated him different. 

Was Ward the reason her team was still alive? Because unlike Hardow, Ward was more destructive to himself than other people.

“What? You looked confused.”

“Nothing. I was just thinking. Will you stay on this good path and never get off?”

“Yes. Nothing will ever get me off.”

“Thanks,” she said. As she stood up.

“Jemma, I don’t know who you are, but thank you. My shrink is the only one who knows about my abuse and believed me. No one else ever did. You believe me, right?”

Simmons didn’t respond right away. She looked over this Grant Ward, a man whom gone through hell in both dimensions. 

“Yes,” she said. 

“Thanks,” he went back to the bar and continued moving the glasses. “I hope you find Garrett and send that SOB away forever.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did Ward opening up to Simmons seem plausible? I wasn't sure. I put in a lot of him walking away from the conversation and that he was more open with what happen to him because of his therapy.


	4. There's a place that I heard of

She practically lived in the same room as the stone. During the day she examined it and touched it. Ignored all the normal scientific protocols. At night she slept by it. She did everything she could to figure out how it worked, but just felt like a big rock. It never even moved. 

But it never grabbed her. Never took her home. She longed to see Fitz again. To be with her friends. She longed to try to correct a wrong that had been done in her universe before it was too late. 

Two weeks passed with her almost never leaving the room. She even had her meals brought to her. She didn’t know how long she would wait. When should she give up and decide this was her home now on the Iliad with Weaver and Gonzales. 

But the idea of never seeing her friends again, being in a world were they were dead weighted heavily on her.

She hit the rock. 

“You stupid rock!” she yelled. “Send me home!” But all her hits did nothing. She sat down with her back against it. 

Her lamenting was interrupted when Weaver came in. She kept her distance from the stone, grabbing a chair and sitting on the opposite side of the room.

“I’m sorry, Jemma,” she said. “I think you might be stuck in our world. It’s not that bad and maybe we can use some of your optimism. And we can use your intel about Hydra.”

“Most of Hydra is dead in my world.”

“The Avengers took out most of their stronghold in Europe. It’s only a matter of time before they get Whitehall.”

“Why can’t we get him? Shouldn’t that be SHIELD’s job?”

“Taking out dangerous people like Whitehall, we leave that for the Avengers. After SHIELD fell, the Iliad’s main focus was to rescue all the other SHIELD agents who got left behind. Now we help rescue people. Did Ultron happen in your world?”

Simmons nodded. 

“We hid the construction of a Helicarrier to rescue people. That’s what SHIELD does. Too long we were secrets that didn’t need to be kept, vendettas, and more loyalty to the organization than the people we were meant to protect. We spent a lot of time after the fall of Hydra recusing other SHIELD agents, trying to find those Hydra had brainwashed. Fury always said SHIELD was about protection, the planet or one person. I figured he meant our fellow SHIELD agents too. Is that how it is by you? Coulson was a good man, he probably saves ordinary people everyday.”

Simmons tried to smile. And then she tried to remember the last time they had saved civilians from danger. Even the helicarrier was done in secret and it had been Fury and Maria Hill who did the rescuing. 

When was the last time they had helped a civilians or even one person. It had been so long ago. 

She heard the swishing behind her.

“Jemma?”

“Good luck,” she said. “Please help keep Grant Ward on his path. Hydra almost killed him. He’s a civilian that needs saving.”

She didn’t resist this time when the rock overcame her. And she didn’t close her eyes. She was in blackness and there was a shimmering figure in front of her. It was her. The other Simmons. Jemma saw the horrific pain in her face. The horror of losing her friends who were close enough to be family. She saw Jemma also. Jemma reached out her hand as did the other Simmons, but the scene changed to the labs in the Playground. She smiled when she saw Fitz before the rock spit her out. 

This time she didn’t hit the floor hard, Fitz caught her. 

“Jemma, oh god, Jemma,” said Fitz’s concerned voice. She smiled before she passed out. 

 

She woke to Fitz, Skye, May, and Coulson in the medbay. Even though she was dizzy and disoriented, she pushed herself to hug Fitz tightly. He seemed to expect the embrace and she melted into him. Feeling him made his being alive even more real. 

She pulled back because she felt dizzy and she wanted look over the four of them just for being alive.

“How long was I gone?”

“A little more than two weeks,” Fitz said, but he looked guilty.

So time moved the same between dimensions. “How was she?” Simmons asked. “The other me?”

“A little needy,” Skye said.

“But that was understandable,” Coulson added. “She lost all of us.”

“I’m sorry, Jemma,” Simmons looked over Fitz. He looked guilty about something. 

“Sorry about what?”

“For taking so long to rescue you.”

“It was okay. I think I got some decent perspective from the other world.”

“We figured out pretty quickly you weren’t our Simmons,” Fitz explained. “Mostly she wouldn’t stop hugging me and screaming I was alive.”

“Don’t be mad,” Skye added. “We kind of did something nice for her that was bad for you.”

Simmons was confused. 

“Blame me for it. I decided to let her stay for two weeks,” Coulson explained. He smiled. “She never got to say goodbye to us because of that psychopath on our team.”

“And this man that killed you-- them, is he in Hydra, now?”

Coulson shook his head. “Hardow is in prison for life for eight truly vicious murders. He’s a Neo-Nazi serial killer and there might be more bodies. He was arrested when he was a kid repeated for for animal abuse, graduated to sexual assault, and then murder. He was from a good family, but I guess some people are just born evil.”

“They died because he was on their team and not Ward.”

“It’s possible,” Coulson said, but he looked unconvinced. 

She thought of Ward in the other universe. The agony he went through because of his brother and John Garrett. “We have to save Ward,” she said, suddenly.

Her friends looked beyond shock. So much that no one said anything for a good 30 seconds.

“What?” Coulson finally asked. “Simmons, just because Ward wasn’t as vicious as this Hardow person, doesn’t make him any less bad.”

“I met him in the other world. He’s not a bad person. He hurt himself rather than other people. He had an awful life.”

“That doesn’t excuse his actions,” May said.

“Not completely,” Simmons said. “But maybe Garrett kidnapping him when he was a teenager and isolating him in the woods helped.”

“What?” Coulson shook his head. “No—Ward’s had a troubling childhood, but he went to military school and supposedly straightened out.”

“I don’t know if that’s true. The Ward in the other world never joined SHIELD or Hydra. Garrett kidnapped and isolated him in the wilderness. That Ward ran for the police when he could. Maybe the one in ours didn’t.”

“We don’t know anything for sure,” May said. “Things are all different between our worlds.”

“Maybe we should find out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It may be a little while before I update this story. I haven't quite figured out how I want to end it.


	5. The Highest Bidder

“Excuse me,” Simmons said to the man behind the desk. He was white, older middle aged, a little chunky but not much. His nameplate read ‘Sheriff Red Johnson’. She smiled brightly when he saw her. “We’re private investigators. We’re trying to locate a Sheriff Duchene who used to work here?” 

Skye and Coulson stood silently behind her. The sheriff’s office was small and seemed to have a very small staff. There were two other desks behind the Sherriff’s each with a deputy’s name. They had parked a Quinjet close by in the field because all they saw around them was nothing but mountains and plains. This town was the only thing within 200 miles that resembled civilization and it had a small population of only 438 people. The town instead had only a restaurant, a bar, a library, a post office and a general store.

“You’re about 1000 miles off, pretty lady,” he said. “He’s retired to Boca two years ago.”

“Oh,” she said, and gave him a smile. “I couldn’t find him online.”

“Andy was a technophobe. I don’t even think he owns a cell phone. Can I help you with something?”

“Maybe. Were you working here in 1999?”

“Yep, I was one of the deputies. A little bit younger and a lot lighter,” he said and followed it up with a laugh.

Simmons smiled. She pulled a folder out of her bag and handed it to him. “I know it was a long time ago but I hoping you might be able to recognize these two people. A adult man and a teenager boy.”

“Sure,” He said, nabbing the folder and opening it. “Although that describes a lot of—“ the man abruptly stopped talking when he looked at the photos. The photos spilled out of his hands on to the floor. Simmons could see a picture of Ward as teenager. Johnson scooped them up, shoved them back into the folder and placed it on his desk.

“I knew that one might come back to haunt me,” he said. His happy demeanor was completely gone.

“Why?” Simmons asked.

“You’re not PI’s are you? You’re SHIELD.”

Coulson and Skye moved closer to the desk. 

“Whether,” Coulson said, he wasn’t angry but his voice was stern. “Spill.”

“Please don’t judge me too harshly. It was a bad time of my life. I was getting divorced—“

“Just tell us what happened,” Skye snapped. 

The Sheriff looked defeated. He looked around the empty room. “This is confidential and off the books? Okay? I won’t say anything unless I know you won’t tell the authorities.”

“We just want info,” Coulson said, the stern tone remained. “Good and bad. Tell me about what happened.”

The sheriff didn’t say anything for a long time. “Kid in the photo came in here screaming. He ran straight to me. The older fellow followed. The kid claimed the older man had kidnapped him. That he abandoned him in the woods and was going to take him back there.”

“Then what?” Coulson said. He gave the Sheriff a sharp look. 

The sheriff said nothing for a moment. 

“Tell us,” Simmons said. She was surprised at her tone. This was almost the same as the story the other Ward told her except he had found the sheriff rather than the deputy. 

“I asked the man what the hell was going on. He explained he ran a wilderness camp for troubled boys and this kid had run off. He explained the kid was a delinquent and a liar. He showed me some paperwork from SHIELD that the parents had signed off on.”

“What?” Coulson asked. “Are you sure it was from SHIELD?”

“You got that eagle emblem right?”

“What happened then?” Simmons said. She kept her voice stern. 

“I looked at the kid. Liar or delinquent, that kid was terrified. I remember that he was a skinny thing. I could his collar bones.”

“What happened? Did you verify Garrett’s story?” Coulson asked.

“Garrett—I wish I never knew that name. If the kid had only come in 30 minutes sooner, he would have been Duchene’s problem. Duchene was a good man. Me, I wasn’t. I sold out that kid for 200 bucks.”

“What?” Coulson said.

“I told Garrett I should call the Sheriff or SHIELD, but Garrett stopped me and I found two crisp 100 dollar bills in my hand. I handed the kid off to him without question.”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Skye asked. “You handed a scared starving kid back to this guy without even checking. Didn't you think the $200 was suspicious.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “The kid stopped screaming and crying. Instead he gave me a look that will haunt my dreams. It wasn’t hatred. It was a despair I ain’t ever seen before. I know what I did was wrong, I was so ashamed, I couldn’t take it back. I remembered the news from last year. That dead senator's speech about his brother, the Hydra agent. I wanted to forget the name Garrett but I’ll never forget the name Grant Ward.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I figured how to end this story! It's not that long, just three more chapters. But I'm going away, so they won't be posted until after August 10th. 
> 
> Also while I was doing research on Wyoming, I discovered that's actually a town called Garrett.


	6. To Dangerous to Save

“I can’t in good conscious let you do this, Simmons. I’m sorry.”

“I know sir, but I want too.” Actually she wasn’t sure. However after hearing what Sheriff Johnson did and what the Ward told her in the other world, she realized that every person that Ward turned to for help hurt or betrayed him. Someone had to try to reach out to him now. But looking at Coulson, she could see he wasn’t about to let her.

“I knew Ward had a troubled past,” Coulson explained, “I had no idea it was this bad, but still. He’s dangerous. I can’t send you in without backup or weapons on a whim that you can reach him.”

“We’re didn’t try, sir.”

“He did murder people. And tried to kill you and Fitz.”

“Sir, Garrett isolated a teenager who had been severely abused. And he did it with SHIELD and his parent’s permission. He never had a chance. This was a mess SHIELD made. It needs to be fixed. We have to start fixing everything what Hydra did in the name of SHIELD.”

“You’re putting a lot of faith in the other Ward. He could have been manipulating you.”

She shook her head. She remembered back to their conversation. That without his SHIELD training, he was easier to read. “He had no motivation to do so. He didn’t ask me for any favors. He didn’t need anything out of me but he seemed generally happy that I believed him that his abuse and kidnapping.”

“Still, Jemma. That was a different world. The other Ward never murdered anyone and I think that’s why he was able to turn his life around without help.”

“We should try, sir. Our Ward murdered people. He probably thinks he can’t turn back.”

Coulson didn’t respond. Simmons could see he still didn’t look convinced. She didn’t know what else to say until she thought of what she learned about living in Wyoming. 

“Sir. Average temperature in Cheyenne Wyoming in the winter is a high of 40 and a lot of 18. Average snowfall is 60 inches. Whitehall brainwashed people using Faustus, but Garrett took an abused kid, starved and isolated him, and left him to the elements. He became Ward’s savior. That’s conventional brainwashing. Doesn’t Ward deserve a second chance? You gave it to people who have done worse.”

Coulson didn’t reply immediately, finally he said. “What happened over there?”

“I told you.”

“You came back different.”

“Because I want to help Ward?”

Coulson shook his head. “No. It’s something more. You’re more headstrong--”

“We chased after Garrett and Ward for vengeance,” Simmons explained. “We left other SHIELD agents behind. We left the people victimized by Hydra behind.”

“No, we’re SHIELD, we didn’t.”

Simmons shook her head. “I had two weeks to talk to Weaver and Gonzales. Really talk to them. After Gonzales secured the Iliad, the first place they went to was the Academy. They didn’t even chase after Hydra. They went back to save their fellow SHIELD agents. We didn’t, sir. I got that distress call from Weaver but all I cared about was getting Ward for betraying my trust.”

“Garrett and Ward were dangerous.” 

“Doesn’t matter. The kids at the academy, they weren’t agents. Remember how naïve Fitz and I were. They were kids and they needed to be rescued. We abandoned them.”

“And you don’t want to abandon Ward?” he questioned. “He’s an adult, Jemma. If we was still a kid that would be different. It’s too late to save him.”

“How do you know?”

“Why didn’t he ask for help in the vault?”

“Maybe he did,” she said, “Maybe we weren’t listening.”

“This is stupid—“

He didn’t get to finish because Skye came into the room. Her face looked grim.

“What is it?” he asked. “Did you find something? The paperwork?”

Skye shook her head. “I’m pretty sure Garrett destroyed all traces—but I can tell you Ward went to the military academy in his records but he never finished. He never went to college either. All his records have been doctored. I found a man who was his roommate at the military academy. He said Ward was there for about six months and one day was gone. He said he never socialized and barely talked. They said his nickname was the walking dead. He looked like he was dead inside. I asked him if he got into fights and he said he didn’t. He was just in his own world.”

“Sir—“

“Simmons—I’m sorry this happened to him, but it doesn’t change that Ward is dangerous.”

“Ward is missing five years,” Skye explained. “Do you think that Garrett had him in the wilderness all that time?”

“Five years?” Coulson asked. Simmons could tell that upset him. “He was just a kid.”

“And even more,” she explained. “I found the land that Garrett’s owned. There is nothing for miles around it. It used to be a wilderness camp in the 1950’s that got destroyed in 1980’s by a mudslide. It’s smacked in the middle of even more wilderness. He would have to have walked more than 100 miles to find civilization. We’re talking about a 15 year old kid,” Skye explained. “Garrett bought it in 1990. No one’s ever used it—“ she paused for a long time. “He left him alone out there.”

Coulson didn’t reply. Simmons wasn’t sure if what she or Skye said made a difference.

“He has no other record of being elsewhere, no other school. Coulson, do you think Garrett brainwashed him?” Skye asked. 

“I think he did. It explains a lot. And why he was so reluctant to Tahiti. But this doesn’t change anything. Ward is dangerous. Like Kara was dangerous when she came out of her brainwashing.”

“Sir— You once said we can save anyone if we got to them soon enough. We saved Cal after 25 years, surely we can try to save Ward.”

“I can go with her,” Skye suggested. “He might be open to talking to me too. Or I can take my team. We can give him a new identity like Cal.”

“No. I can’t do it. It’s too dangerous. Maybe if we cross paths again--”

“Sir, next time we cross paths, someone could end up dead.”

Coulson shook his head. Simmons could see he wasn’t going to budge, but she at least saw something in her director’s face—Sadness. 

 

Simmons was dejected when she walked to the lab. She found Fitz pretending to work. She knew he was waiting for her. He smiled when she came in.

“So, no go?”

Simmons shook her head. “He thinks it’s too dangerous. Skye even offered to take her team but he still said no.”

“Maybe he’s right.”

“Fitz, you didn’t talk to that other Ward. He was so different. He was able to get his life together because something helped him see the light. Our Ward— every single person in his life, who could have helped him, didn’t. His family, John Garrett, that sheriff, and us.”

“Hey, we were his victims, not the other way around.”

“We were, and then he became our victim. That wonderful cycle keeps going. Someone has to stay stop and I don’t think Ward knows how too.”

“Look,” Fitz said, looking down. “Remember before. How I thought he had been brainwashed or something. The scary part is now that I know he was, I still can’t get over what he did to me—to us. Why couldn’t he even say he was sorry?”

“I don’t know, Fitz. Maybe he thinks he’s too far gone to apologize. The whole idea of meeting up with him is to talk to him. See if a little sympathy can help—I don’t know. He’s a murderer and he almost killed Morse. I guess I was haunted by meeting the other Ward. Haunted that the other SHIELD who went to save fellow agents when we didn’t.”

“We stopped Hydra threats.”

“We should have done both. But I guess I sound stupid about Ward.”

Fitz shook his head. “No, you sound compassionate. You sound like the Simmons from the academy. The kindhearted one. I want to be that way again. I know Garrett brainwashed him, but I guess I’m selfish because all I remember is the pain he caused.”

Simmons didn’t respond right away. Her anger against Ward started even before he tried to kill them. She had felt anger because she cared about him. Her anger had been so strong it blinded her. It probably wouldn’t have mattered if Ward told her the truth, she would have thought it was a lie or an excuse. She had abandoned some of her SHIELD training. One that taught her to be compassionate to her enemies.

“I think I’m finding her again but I think Ward is a lost cause.”

“Maybe not,” said another voice. It was Skye. She held up a cellphone. It wasn’t a normal one that SHIELD used.

“What’s that?”

“Bakski’s old cell. Ward called me on it once. He probably doesn’t the number anymore, but he might be listening to voice mail.”

“Why do you want to help?” Simmons asked. “You hate him.”

“I do. But after all I’ve heard, I’m not sure what to think. I can see something in your eyes, Jemma—That other Ward. He was a good guy?”

“He did some bad things, but he wasn’t a psychopath. He got the help he needed. I don’t think the Ward in our world ever did. He at least needs to get that chance.”

Skye turned on the phone and dialed the number. After a few moments, she spoke. “Ward, I’m sure this is the last person you expect to hear from. Simmons wants to talk to you. She’ll be unarmed. I ask that you do the same. This is just a friendly chat, about the past. And then you and her can go separate ways. No harm to come to either of you.” She hung up.

“Do you think I’m crazy?” Simmons wasn’t sure. She needed some validation if what she was doing was right. She spend over a year hating Ward so much that she wished he was dead. Now, she thought of the little boy thrown into the well because he rescued his brother too soon or the teenage boy alone in the middle of nowhere.

Skye shrugged her shoulders. “A year ago, maybe. My dad did bad things, but it turns out he was a good person under it all. Maybe Ward is too.”

“Are you going to tell Coulson?”

She shook her head. “Although he is going to kill me for it. I am going to be your backup. I’ll tell Coulson we’re going out for a training exercise.”

The phone beeped. All Skye saw was coordinates and a time.


	7. Gut Feeling

Simmons was nervous. Part of her thought this was stupid. Just because Ward had became good in other universe didn't mean it would happen here. While this Ward hadn't killed her in the Hydra base, things had changed since then. 

The coordinates took her to a dark street in New Haven, Connecticut. Skye and her team were close by. 

Simmons felt a little weird standing alone in the street. It was chilly and she wore a large coat with big buttons. She was unarmed but wasn't without her communicator. 

The street didn’t have a lot of people walking by and only a few cars. She heard the roar of a motorcycle. It was coming down the street fast but stopped short right in front of her. Making a grinding sound as it stopped.

The man driving was stocky and had a bit of a belly. Simmons could see gray hair that stuck outside the helmet. He opened the seat, pulled out another helmet and handed it to her.

“Let’s go. You won’t be able to see through the helmet. Climb on first, hold on to my back and don’t let go until I say so.

She paused for a moment. She was going to meet someone who murdered people, who almost killed her, and betrayal her trust.

“Boss said, now or never.”

Simmons did what he asked. She climbed on to the bike. Put on the helmet. It was completely opaque. She felt the for the his waist. She held on tight as the motorcycle took off.

Simmons felt her heart racing the entire way. Partly because she was on a motorcycle and couldn’t see, the other part because she thought she had made a terrible mistake. They did a lot of highway driving, but she felt about getting off at every place they stopped.

But she didn’t. She stayed on the bike because she thought about what Weaver and Gonzales had told her and what had happened to the other Ward. Someone had to at least try to save him. She knew she was putting her life at risk but wasn’t that was SHIELD was all about? Saving people?

The biker didn’t let her take the helmet off. He held her hand and took her inside somewhere and down some steep stairs. When he took her helmet off, she saw she was in an office with no windows that was also empty. There was a desk with two chairs in front of it. The man never took off his helmet and he left her in the office. 

A women stood in the middle of the office. Simmons was surprised to find her middle aged, white, and a little pudgy. She looked like she could be someone’s grandma.

“I have to pat you down,” she said with no emotion in her voice.

Simmons let her do it and the woman wasn’t rough or touched anyplace she shouldn’t. She then ran a scanner over her. It beeped by her ear. The woman put out her hand and Simmons put her communicator in it. 

When she was done, she said nothing and left

Simmons sat and waited. She looked over the room. It was a rather generic office. Nothing that could even tell her where they were. 

“Hello, Simmons,” said a voice from behind her. She hadn’t even heard him come in.

She turned around but didn’t smile. Ward didn’t look much different than when she last saw him but he was different than the other Ward in appearance. His hair was cut neatly and he had stubble on his chain. He was cleanly dressed, wearing black pants and sweatshirt. He wasn’t super skinny and he looked like he still worked out. It was hard looking at him while thinking of Fitz, of Bobbie, and of the Ward in the other world but then she imagined the kid alone in the wilderness surviving on his wits.

For a moment Simmons couldn’t speak. Ward‘s face in this universe was much different. The other Ward had a hardened face but Simmons could read it. She couldn’t read this Ward. She never could unless he wanted too. This was a Ward who had been brainwashed by Garrett for five years, who trained to be spy for 10. She couldn’t tell if he was lying or not.

“We make all these arrangements and now you don’t want to talk?”

She didn’t know what to say, so she went right to the point. “I know what Garrett did to you.”

Ward looked at her confused. He walked away from the door, but didn’t approach her. Instead he walked besides the desk, but didn’t sit. “Garrett didn’t do anything to me.”

“I know about the woods in Wyoming where he took you when you when you were 15 and left you there. Skye looked at your records. High School, college, it was all faked.”

“And this is why you came to see me. Fine,” he said, putting me out his hands. “You found me out. I lied on my SHIELD application. I forgot to mention I was Hydra also. I remember next time I apply.” Simmons sighed

“Ward, don’t you think that Garrett did something to you?”

“What do you mean?” he asked. “Simmons, what are you doing here? Let me have Randy take you back to New Haven.”

“I mean brainwashing.”

Ward shook his head but for a second his visage dropped. “I was never brainwashed.”

“I know about the deputy in Wyoming.”

Ward did respond. More cracks appeared in his visage.

“I know you ran from Garrett and that the deputy sold you out. I know Garrett took you back and kept you isolated for five years. Ward, he kidnapped you. He kept you hostage until you were loyal to him.”

“No- he didn’t. I volunteered to go and I stayed. I was loyal to him because he saved me from my family.”

“Ward, he didn’t save you. You killed for him. That’s not saving.”

Ward didn’t respond but Simmons could see he was angry. Not an anger that he meant to hurt her, but one that he didn’t want to hear what she was saying. “Enough,” he finally said. “Get out.”

“Not yet.”

“What do you want from me?” his voice rose. “I tried to explain what happened to me and you all shot me down. You and Skye literally. Why are you here, Simmons, to rub things in my face that I’m a coward? Are you that sick and twisted? I know who I am.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m a murderer, Simmons. Just like you but at least I accept who I am. Can you?”

“I didn’t come to discuss me—“

“What did you come here for? Now you’re sympathetic about my past? I got the message loud and clear from you, Simmons; You called me a monster. You told Fitz I didn’t care about him or anyone. You tried to kill me and instead killed another person. You’re a murderer, Jemma and you don’t care that you did it. Bakshi and I meant you no harm at the time. That’s hardly what a hero would do. But it is what a good SHIELD agent would do.”

Simmons was off guard for a moment. He was right. She hadn’t mourned Bakski but she did kill him. She didn’t regret her action, but she was starting too. She didn’t want to think about that now. She came to help Ward and was losing control of the situation. “I was wrong. You cared for John Garrett. I think you cared about Skye—And Agent 33.”

Ward sat down and said nothing.

“I see it now. You cared so much for them more than yourself—“ she paused. “Ward, I came here to see if I can reach you. I came to help you.”

“What? Did you get a PhD in psychology or something?”

“No, but I saw something in the last few weeks that made me question everything, SHIELD, myself, even you.”

“You can’t reach me, Simmons.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s too late.”

Simmons paused. She thought of the other Ward. How before he turned his life around, he was sure he would turn up dead. “I don’t think so.”

“It doesn’t matter if Garrett brainwashed me—I’ve murdered people. You can’t come back from that. I have no future. There is no hope for me, but at least I can do something good before it all comes crashing down.”

Simmons looked confused. “Intel says you’re trying to restart Hydra. That not something good.”

“Can’t restart an organization that never ended.”

“But we got Whitehall and a bunch of heads. The Avengers got List and Von Strucker.”

“Coulson got a bunch of bureaucrats who foolishly got together. Hydra heads don’t get together on a regular basis. They’re extremely decentralized so they never die. They are all over the world. Do you think that it just started in Germany? They was another branch hiding in Imperial Japan and a third in Italy. Hydra is everywhere. There are dozens of heads. Maybe even a hundred. I intent to chop off as many of those heads as possible.”

Simmons realized exact what Ward was telling her. He wasn’t restarting Hydra. He planned to take it down or die trying. “It’s suicide.”

“I know. I have no hope for me. Coulson is too much of a good man to hurt innocent people or other SHIELD agents to get close to Hydra. I’m willing do that.”

“Ward—Please give it up. It’s not worth—“

“My life? My soul? That’s all gone, Simmons. It was gone the first time I killed for Garrett. I guess for a moment I hoped that maybe Skye—Maybe she wouldn’t hate me. That’s why Garrett said after I killed Buddy that no one would understand. People don’t like it when you kill defenseless animals.”

“You just killed Buddy because he told you too?”

“Yes. Attachments were for the weak.”

“You didn’t hesitate?”

Ward didn’t response. 

“Ward, Garrett messed with your mind. He knew you were abused and made it worse.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’ve been trying to kill the heads of Hydra but I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t hurt my team. Whitehall saw that. But once I killed Kara with May’s face, I know that I could kill those close to me. Show Hydra I belong. They’ll never know I really want them dead.”

Simmons heart fell into her stomach hearing what he was saying. Suddenly she also feared for herself. Would she get out of her alive?

But she thought about it calmly. She still through Ward wouldn’t be able to do it. 

“Ward—please. Maybe we can help you kill them. You shouldn’t have to do this alone.”

“You can’t,” he explained. “I can now. I can do bad things without guilt anymore—without weakness.”

“Feeling guilt is not weak, Ward.”

“It is, in Hydra.”

“I don’t believe you,” she said. “I don’t believe you no longer feel guilt.”

“I’m a psychopath, aren’t I? Is that what May and Hunter called me. I feel nothing. Any good I had is gone. Garrett told me I had to fight that weakness inside me and I did. I won. So go back Simmons, go and tell them my plan. Tell them I will kill anyone who gets in my way. Civilians, SHIELD, Avengers, even you. I will root out Hydra until there is nothing left but ashes.”

Simmons felt dejected. “Sorry, you feel that way.”

Ward stood up. “I’ll have Randy take you back to New Haven or any other place he can take you. When our paths cross again, I won’t be so nice.”

Simmons began to button her coat. She had taken advantage of Ward by saying she only wanted to talk. It wasn’t honorable what was about to do, but sometimes you had to go into shades of grey. 

She removed one of the buttons of her coat. Fitz had created it to be made completely out of plastic. No metal detector would pick it up and it looked like a regular button. 

She tossed it at Ward and it attached directly to his chest.

“I’m sorry,” she said and tears filled her eyes. 

Ward wasn’t that angry, but he looked annoyed at her. 

The disk pulsed out, electricity crackled around his body. Ward’s eyes rolled back before he collapsed to the ground in a heap.

Simmons touched the communicator lodged in her tooth with her tongue.

“I have him.”


	8. Lecturing Dad

“What the hell am I supposed to do with the both of you?”

Simmons had only once seen Coulson this mad. It had been while they were looking for the Providence base. 

May never showed emotion in her face but her very essence breathed anger. Simmons felt like she was a school girl who got caught by mom and dad playing hooky. 

Skye and she sat in the conference room next to each other with Coulson and May across. They weren’t cuffed or anything, but Simmons knew she was going to get a lecture. She felt like she was five years old. Skye looked the same. She guessed Skye didn’t really like going behind Coulson’s back. Simmons didn’t like forcing Skye to help. It hadn’t been in the plan. She was only supposed to talk to Ward, but she didn’t see any other choice. 

Simmons had been surprised. When Skye’s team showed up, there was no one really to take out. The biker Randy and his wife Allison were upstairs running a bar. When Simmons came upstairs, she discovered the bar was actually the same dive bar the other Ward had been working at. 

Randy and Allison had never worked for Hydra directly but had done odd jobs over the years for SHIELD and later Hydra. Both of them told Skye that as long as Ward paid them and it didn’t matter whom he worked for. They never asked where the money came from, but he always seem to have plenty of it. Coulson had them locked in the interrogation room but since running a bar wasn’t a crime, he would probably eventually let them go with a stern warning to disappear and never do work for Hydra again.

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“Sorry?” he asked. “Sorry isn’t good enough. Skye, I made you a team leader for a reason because I thought you were responsible. Not only did I order you not to see Ward, I definitely did not want you to bring him back here.”

“I’m sorry, Coulson,” she said. “I know you didn’t want to do this, but there was no other choice. He wasn’t going to go with Simmons willingly.”

“Simmons, you said he wanted to infiltrate Hydra, why didn’t you just leave him?”

“In the other world—“

“I’m sick of hearing about the other world,” he said as his voice went up. Simmons put her head down and studied the table. “Our world is different. In our world, Ward is unwilling to be saved or owned to what he’s done, but he is willing to sacrifice himself for the greater good. He’s acting like a SHIELD agent.”

Simmons looked up. “If he’s a SHIELD agent, why are leaving him behind with no exit plan? Isn’t that what the old SHIELD did, the one that was corrupted by Hydra?”

“This is different. I said he was acting like a SHIELD agent, not that he was. Ward made his bed and now he has to lie in it. He was willing to do so until you interfered.”

Suddenly she felt like she had done the wrong thing. Not because she didn’t want to help Ward, but she had brought him her because she thought Coulson would help. Because of her time in the other world, she had let go of her hatred. She realized it was making her a bad person, making her kill without remorse. She couldn’t be an agent of SHIELD and act like Hydra. It seemed that Skye and Fitz were coming around, but Coulson and May weren’t. She wasn’t sure what she could say to convince him that he had to let go of his hatred. 

“Sir, you have to stop blaming him for the things he hasn’t done.”

Coulson looked at her oddly.

“Sir. I think deep down Ward is afraid. Afraid of guilt. I told myself I wanted Ward dead because of his potential threat but really I wanted revenge. Ward didn't destroy SHIELD, Hydra did. Ward needs to owe up for what he did but SHIELD has to owe up for what they did to him. You heard what Sheriff Johnson said. Garrett had SHIELD paperwork signed by Ward’s parents. He was supposed to be joining SHIELD not Hydra.”

“Simmons we don’t have the time, energy or resources to save one man.” May said. “Particular one that does not want to be saved.”

“Wait a minute,” Coulson said. His anger calmed. Simmons didn’t know if was because of what May said. “Simmons, why Ward of all people? Why save the man who hurt you and hurt your friends?”

“Sir, Ward is on a suicide mission because he doesn’t think anyone cares about him enough to stop him. His only ally was a brainwashed SHIELD agent we also left behind. Do you think Agent Palamas wanted to be brainwashed? Do you think Ward did too? Hydra spent 70 years victimizing people in SHIELD’s name. Don’t we owe it to save Hydra’s victims from themselves? And shouldn't we rise above revenge and our hurt?”

At least Coulson looked a little more convinced. May didn't at all.

“Sir, we should at least try?”

Coulson didn't respond right away. “We can try, but we do it my way. After he’s medically checked out, he has to go back to the vault.”

“Sir—it’s dark in there.”

“Simmons, Ward isn’t a child. Yes, what happened to him is terrible. Yes, putting him back in that cell is not the best option, but we have to think of our safety first. Do you understand? I had to hold Cal against a wall to talk him down. I need Ward secure before I talk to him.”

Simmons didn't like the idea of Ward back in a place where they had treated him like Garrett, but she also knew Coulson was right. Ward was still dangerous. “Turn on the lights please and the skylight. And make sure he is never alone. Okay. We have enough security. We can spare some of them to watch him.”

“I will talk to him. I will let him know that forgiveness can happen if he really wants it. But Simmons if I can’t reach him, I have to hand him over to Talbot. I don’t like it. We can try to save Ward from himself but if we can’t, there is nothing I can do. Ward is a danger to himself and others. Regardless of what has been done to him.”

“And if Ward is open?”

“Then we’ll work something out.”

 

“This is a terrible idea,” May said.

“Simmons didn’t exactly leave me a choice.” 

“Put him out of his misery. That’s what SHIELD does to people who are too far gone to save.”

Coulson looked over May. He let what she said sink in. That was SHIELD when Hydra was still part of them. A SHIELD that would kill people, often in cold blood, or lock them up without civil rights or lawyers. 

He didn’t respond to what she said. Instead he looked at the monitor. Ward was passed out on the bed in the vault. He had been kept sedated in the medical bay until he was checked out. Coulson was surprised at his medical reports. There was still a bullet fragment in his side and scarring on his lung. It explained Morse had bested him in a fight. He was still healing from when Skye shot him. Just as Morse was still healing from being shot. But there were other things he saw that shocked him even more. 

Simmons sat on a chair right outside. She had turned on all the lights on including a panel that allowed some sunlight in. 

“I can’t kill him. Can you?”

“Are you asking me to do it or is it a moral question?”

“The latter.”

“It’s terrible what happened to him. I’m sure Garrett did a number on him, but Garrett’s been dead for more than a year. He can’t keep excusing his behavior.”

“I don’t think he is.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You heard what Simmons said. He was making himself evil so Hydra would accept him. He’s not excusing his behavior, he’s embracing it.”

“Still, she had to stun him because he wanted to stay undercover. She should have left him there. Maybe he could have done what he said. I’m sorry Phil, he’s a lost cause.”

Coulson didn’t agree but he didn’t tell May. Simmons’ story about the other world was rubbing off on him. He remembered his anger when SHIELD fell. His entire life was gone in a flash. Thirty years of work and it was all gone. He thought he had his team, at least, but then he found out about Ward and later when he hurt Fitz and Simmons, his world fell apart even more. Ward and he had their differences before. They occasionally rubbed each other the wrong way, but he trusted him, especially because he looked after the team. 

Coulson realized while he chased Garrett all over the world, Gonzales had gone to rescue Weaver and the kids at the Academy. He instilled in his agents to never leave a man behind, but he left other SHIELD agents behind. 

“You shouldn't coddle him.”

“I’m don’t plan to coddle him, May. I plan to try to bring him back from the brink.”

“And if you can’t?”

Coulson didn’t want to think about it.


	9. Reaching out

“You brightened the place up, I see,” Ward said to Coulson when he came into the room. Coulson nodded to the guard who left. He stood about a foot away from the force field. “I still can’t break out, so I don’t need a guard.”

“Simmons insisted you never be isolated or in darkness. I’m sorry.” Ward looked at him oddly. “I had no idea what Garrett did to you. I can’t imagine how the isolation must have been. We know about his land. Nothing for 100 miles. The darkness at night must have been terrified.”

“Not always,” Ward admitted. “On some nights, the world was lit up by stars. It was beautiful.”

“I bet you remember only the good things. Did you think Garrett did you a favor? Because according to that deputy, you were none too happy to go back with him. He called you a skinny thing and you had despair in your eyes. There wasn’t enough to eat, right? Staving your victim, that’s part of brainwashing 101. So is isolation. You don’t remember that, right? You just remember not being scared anymore—except if John Garrett left you.”

“What are going to do with me?” he said, changing the subject. “Keep me here forever? Either shoot me or let me finish my mission.”

“Who gave you that mission?”

Ward didn’t respond.

“It took me a while to get past my own anger to see it. Every chance you’ve had to disappear, you’ve never taken it. You’ve done everything to get into Hydra. But I don’t think you did it was just for Garrett or for Skye. Did someone else in SHIELD give you that mission?”

“I’m free of weaknesses now,” he explained, ignoring what Coulson said. “I have what it takes to do all the bad things to prove that I’m Hydra. They won’t take someone who’s weak. Garrett and Whitehall knew I was weak. That’s why I didn’t go undercover with Strucker because they would see it too. I had to get rid of those weaknesses and you helped me.”

“Ward— What you are talking about it is compassion. It’s not weakness.”

“It is with Hydra. I told you, Coulson. Hydra takes the shot without thinking that’s why they’ll win. If I’m Hydra, I can take that shot for humanity. I’m expendable if it protects the world from Hydra. I’m sorry good SHIELD agents have to die for it. But isn’t it worth it to get rid of Hydra?”

Coulson felt ill, not about Ward, but how much Garrett, Hydra and even SHIELD twisted him. 

Coulson thought a lot about what Simmons told him about the other world. 

Hydra had been a part of SHIELD. Everything they learned, their training, their morals were taught by Hydra. Ward had gotten the blunt of this bad training. 

Coulson realized something else. He was still relying on his old training and he was repeating the same mistakes as before. Simmons had come back to tell him Gonzales’ SHIELD were about protecting people and leaving the villains to the Avengers.

“You haven’t answered my question. Kill me or let me finished my mission.”

“You’re not going back into Hydra.”

“I’m getting close to one of the heads. A man named Mitchell.”

Coulson shook his head. “You think you are but you’re not.”

Ward looked at him confused.

“Specialists are taught to compartmentalized. You do it, Morse does it and May did it. But when the compartments bleed together, it gets bad. It happened to May but she realized it.” Coulson paused. “Ward, your guilt is eating you up inside, isn’t it? I didn’t see it before because of my anger. But Simmons saw it and Hydra will too. They’ll know you aren’t one of them. Hydra recruits two ways, true believers and brainwashing. They aren’t going to believe you are a true believer and they aren’t got to believe that Whitehall still controls you.”

“How the hell did you know?” Ward asked, his voice went up.

“We never found his body. Only a handful of agents know. I didn’t want word to get out that we knew he was alive. Do you know where he is?”

Ward shook his head. “If I did, he’d be dead, for Kara. How did you know?”

“It wasn’t me, it was Morse. She saw Whitehall in action. She saw the agents he brainwashed. She only met you the one time, but she saw how smart and resourceful you are. She said she didn’t see that. She told me that you acted weird and disconnected. Did he do it while you were recovering? While you were unconscious, I ran some medical scans on you. He patched you up, didn’t he? Except he left a bullet fragment in you, so you would be in chronic pain. Whitehall was a sadist. He liked to cause pain. He wanted you to feel pain for betraying him. And your brain scan indicated Faustus was done on you.”

“I pretended,” he admitted. “Pretended to comply to him, so he would trust me. He wanted Morse dead. He wanted SHIELD agents dead. He even wanted other Hydra heads gone. Thought they were a liability and weren’t true Hydra. They were more interested in money than chaos. I was just giving him what he wanted. So he would trust me again.”

“I don’t think it was all pretend. Although I’m glad some of it was. You almost killed Morse.” Coulson felt a little anger but he pushed it down. 

“It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but destroying Hydra completely. Let me go back. Let me finish this.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t in good conscious let you continue this destructive spiral.”

Ward laugh. “Conscious? I admit I don’t have one, why can’t you?”

“I think you do,” he said. “The guilt is killing you. Feeling guilt is not a weakness. I’m sorry. I was so angry I didn’t see it. SHIELD was my life and you took that away.”

“I didn’t.”

“I know that now. When Hydra was part of SHIELD, they hurt people and their own agents including you. Ward, you’re more a victim of Hydra than any of us.”

“I’m not a victim.”

“You are and you need to realize that. Ward, it’s over. Your assignment is over. I will do what I can to help you, but you’re done.”

“I don’t report to you.”

“Who then? Who ordered you to infiltrate Hydra?”

Ward didn’t respond. He walked to the back of the cell and faced the wall.

“Please let us help you.”

“Like you helped me after.” He said without turning around.

“I’m sorry. I had no idea what Garrett did to you and I ignored the signs of the horrible guilt you must be feeling. The suicide attempts, the despair you felt in the beginning. I ignored it all, because I wanted you to suffer.”

He wasn’t lying. He wanted vengeance on Ward so bad afterwards, he wasn’t thinking straight.

“I got that message loud and clear, Coulson. It didn’t matter what Christian or Garrett did to me. None of you gave a flying fuck about what happened to me. I tried to explain that on the bus but you all shut me down. Everyone else is allowed to have an excuse for their actions but me.”

Coulson didn’t know what to say.

“Or do you just want to erase my memories. That’s what SHIELD does, doesn’t it? They like to erase all their ugly mistakes. Hydra didn’t hide in SHIELD, Coulson, they were SHIELD.”

“I know.”

“So just let me go back to what I’m doing. Hydra will be gone, SHIELD will have a clean slate. You can keep pretending your hands aren’t as dirty as mine.”

“I can’t. I don’t think it’s too late to save you.” Ward didn’t turn around but his head moved up.

“It is. Coulson, no one cares about me. I have no one. I killed the only person who believed in me.”

“You know the story about how Romanoff joined SHIELD right?”

Ward didn’t respond.

“Barton spent months with her, trying to convince her she wasn’t alone. Trying to convince she wasn’t a monster.”

“They were strangers,” Ward explained. “She hadn’t hurt him. And Skye thinks I’m a monster.”

“She shot him trying to escape. In the stomach. He still thought she was good inside.” 

“I’m not. I’m evil inside. I’m nobody. Nothing, unimportant. I have no one that cares about me enough. So it’s okay. Just let me finish my mission.”

“No,” said a voice. Ward finally turned around. Coulson could see what he was hiding. There were cracks in his face. The poker face that SHIELD agents learn was beginning to fade. For the very first time, Ward looked distressed that his guilt was close to overcoming him. He only needed a little push. 

Simmons had come into the room. “You aren’t alone. I think you can be a good man, if you want too. I think you do too.”

Ward looked down. He wouldn’t make eye contact with Simmons.

“Ward—that person who jumped out of the plane to save me. He’s in there, isn’t he? It wasn’t all an act.”

“Even if he is, I killed too many people. I can’t be a good man. I’ve done to many terrible things.”

Simmons walked up to the field. “I know and so do you. I know why you went on a suicide mission. That compartment—the one that has your guilt. You are fighting it. You want to be dead before it opens, right? Because death is less terrifying than facing what you’ve done. And to face what your brother and Garrett did to you. Your brother— he made you hurt the only person who loved.”

Ward didn’t respond. He kept looking down. He choked back. 

“Please let us help you. We need to fix SHIELD’s mistakes not erase or kill them.” 

“You can’t trust me. I can’t even trust myself. I can’t even trust my own memories,” he admitted. 

“I know. We’ll going to get you help you need, Ward. But you have to fight for it. Please.”

Ward started breathing heavily. “I didn’t want to do it. You understand that? I didn’t want to hurt Thomas. I didn’t want to kill those people, but I was terrified, of being beaten by my brother or Garrett abandoning me. I thought he was the only person who cared about me. I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to be a killer and I didn’t want to hurt you or Fitz or Skye. I didn’t want to destroy our family.”

“I know. Your brother was a monster. And you were his victim. You were Garrett’s victim too. Don’t let them control you any longer. Feel the pain, feel the guilt. Accept what you have done and what was done to you.”

She placed her hand her hand on the force field. The field turned orange when he placed his hand against hers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the love, kudos and comments. I wanted to do a little more with this story but it kind of fizzled out.


End file.
